


the road will only be wide (the rain will never stop falling)

by weird_bird (2weird4)



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Character Study, Damian Wayne is Batman, Damian Wayne is Robin, Dick Grayson is Batman, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Fluff and Angst, Flying Batmobile!, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-01 05:22:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8610391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2weird4/pseuds/weird_bird
Summary: Six oneshots for Dynamic Duo Week 2016, celebrating the platonic relationship between Dick and Damian.Day 1: Dick is going to show Damian how to be a kid even if it kills him.Day 2: Damian doesn’t scare easy.Day 3: Under the shadow of the Bat.Day 5: Fathers and sons, brothers and mother tongues.Day 7: "With great power comes great responsibility." - Batman, probablyDay 6: One day, Damian would like to be the person Grayson thinks he is.





	1. stepping gently

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title and chapter titles from the poem ["Shoulders" by Naomi Shihab Nye.](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/shoulders)
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [heirloomparasite.](http://heirloomparasite.tumblr.com/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Day 1 prompt "Put the knife down, _now."_
> 
> Warnings for brief weapon use and very vague allusions to canonical child abuse.

Tim is shaking his head at him, striding away from him. “No. Are you kidding me?”

Despite himself, Dick is still shocked by the vitriol coiled up under Tim’s words. “He’s just a kid,” he said quietly.

“You don’t even know what he’s done.” Tim is typing with much more force than necessary, refusing to look up at Dick. “What he could do.”

“What the League tried to make him into, that’s not who he is.” Dick’s hand curls into a frustrated fist as he stares at the back of Tim’s hair. “There’s more of Bruce in him than you think.”

“Clearly you see something in him that no one else does,” he says with a scoff. “Even Bruce. You ever think you’re the one who’s blind?” 

That one did sting, Dick admits, on Damian’s behalf. And it only strengthens his resolve. “You won’t come, then,” Dick presses, irritable. 

“No. And good luck getting anyone else to come, either.”

 

And the damning thing is that Dick can’t. He’d gone into this with determination, even excitement. He gets looks of incredulity. From Jason, a laugh and a good solid head-butt from that goddamn helmet. Barbara tells him carefully that she just can’t get away.

It only fires him up more. All the previous day, he keeps busy with Alfred. Even though it’ll just be the three of them now, it’s a lot harder to know what Damian doesn’t like than what he does.

 

“What the hell is this, Grayson?” Damian demands. Dick has an arm around his chest and his hand covering his eyes; it’s slow progress getting down the stairs, but he notes the unease at being blinded in Damian’s voice (despite his claims at being able to fight without sight) and decides to make this as quick as he can. 

“Language,” he admonishes cheerily. “Okay. Keep your eyes closed.”

Damian groans but for whatever reason, he actually listens, eyes scrunched closed with endearing dedication. He’s just a kid, Dick remembers telling Tim, and he wishes he could show everyone who scoffs what Damian looks like when he’s not fighting so hard for the respect they still don’t give him.

“Okay...now…” Dick crosses the room and gets his phone ready to take a picture, nudging Alfred. Alfred’s mouth begins to curve as Dick exclaims, “Open ‘em!”

Damian opens his eyes.

Slowly, Dick lowers his phone. Damian looks nonplussed.

“It is your birthday, right, Damian?” He clears his throat.

Damian’s face does this complicated scrunching thing that makes Dick want to hug him. Then he turns tightly on his heel and makes to flee. Before he can reach the stairs, Alfred places his hand on his shoulder. To Alfred’s credit, Damian stops.

“I thought we could celebrate,” he says, more uncertain now. He bounces back on his heels.

“The way I have ‘celebrated’ the last five birthdays is by dueling my mother,” Damian snaps at him. When Dick’s eyes soften, his eyes widen. Clearly not the response he wanted. “Birthday parties are for children.”

Dick wants to tell him that he is a child, he _is_ , but his inevitable response to that is the last thing Dick wants. “Birthday parties are for family,” he corrects.

A contorted expression passes across Damian’s face again and he balls his little fists. Stares down Dick for a long moment. Everything with him is a fight.

“Okay, fine.” Dick raises his hands as if in surrender. “If you don’t want Alfred’s lemon cake, you don’t want Alfred’s lemon cake. Alfred and I can split it between ourselves.” He leans down, lips pursed to blow out the candles. “It’s too bad, I guess. I thought this would make you happy, Damian.” He sighs, and his sigh nearly blows out the candles before he yanks his head back. “Whoops.” 

It’s far enough that he can see Damian’s micro-expression waver into soft disbelief. Damian’s accustomed to the idea of money and time and bodies poured into the cultivation of his skill, but he’s still so unused to the idea of anyone being invested in his _happiness._

Dick turns back around to hide his smile. Reaching out, he picks up the knife with deliberate slowness. Then feels cool metal and hears a thunk. Adrenalin whooshes through him. 

Damian’s pinned his elbow by a birdarang. 

Damian seems to have come to a decision. “Put the knife down, _now,_ ” he snaps. 

Leaving aside that he shouldn’t have the weapon while out of uniform, Dick just tugs it free of his sleeve, spins it deftly and then presses it flat and harmless to the wood of the table. And grins. “It’s all yours, Damian.”


	2. his ear fills up with breathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the Day 2 prompt "We really need to be quiet, but you've got the hiccups."
> 
> No notable warnings.

Fear prickles across Damian’s skin and he presses his back flat to the wall. He’s breathing quiet like the assassin he was trained to be.

This house is filled with shadows. 

There’s an oily darkness under his bed seeping out onto the floor. 

The creak of the old house makes a shudder run down his spine.

Another creak and Damian’s heart nearly stops. Another. Another. It’s just the house. It’s just the house. The fight and fear are filling his body, flooding through his veins and making him brace his feet on the ground.

A hiccup. “Damian?”

The breath huffs out of him hard. “Grayson, for the love of--” He yanks a Grayson gone uncooperatively leggy in his surprise into his room by the front of his shirt.

“What’s going on?” Grayson waits with patience for Damian to release his shirt, straightening up and peering down at him in the murky dimness of his room.

“Tt.” Damian looks away from him in dismissal. “You shouldn’t skulk.”

“Hey, _I_ don't skulk.” Resting his forearm on the inside of the door, Grayson gives Damian a look that he won’t admit makes him squirm. He’s trying to figure him out and Damian won’t have it. Hands on his bedroom door, Damian makes to shove it closed.

“Hey! Hey, whoa.” Probably in consideration for Pennyworth, Grayson lowers his voice as he pushes back against the door. “Is this about the movie?”

Damian slams the door closed. A moment later, sheepish, he draws it slowly open again. “No,” he grumbles. 

He’d overridden all of Grayson’s warnings and cajoling from _“I don’t know, I’ve heard it’s pretty scary”_ to _“Are you_ sure _you don’t want to watch something else?”_ Now he cannot possibly admit that yes, the sudden jumps and screeching did rattle him despite all his training. He will not let on that the sense of foreboding built up by the movie had stuck down deep in his stomach. It is not just weak, it is _silly._ It was a movie and its budget was probably less than what his father makes in a month.

Grayson is smiling, and Damian has never hated him more. “You know, I’m kind of freaked out, too,” he says casually. “You want to hang out for a while longer before bed?” 

“Only so you won’t wake Pennyworth with your nightmares again,” Damian acquiesces. And he regrets it the next instant. Sure, Grayson had gasped and jolted at some scenes in the movie, but things far more terrible and far more real are what wake him screaming. Going for someone's soft spots as a defensive maneuver is not a lesson he learned from the League, but from Grayson himself. His innate gift for insight is as deadly a weapon in his hands as a scimitar in a swordmaster's.

Today, Grayson only wields another smile, and Damian feels guilty just the same.

 _“A while longer”_ turns into Damian curled up in a tight ball at his warm solid back in the bedroom Grayson had reclaimed from his childhood. The worn, comfortable covers tangle around their feet and the silence is a friendly companion.

Just as he tentatively rests his cheek against a strong shoulder, though, Grayson's body jerks with a hiccup.

“Grayson--fucking--” Damian whacks his shoulder.

“Language," Grayson exclaims on instinct, though amusement waylays his sternness. Hiccuping, laughing, Grayson shoves back against Damian. 

The darkness has never seemed further away.


	3. the hum of a boy's dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt "shirt thief."
> 
> The only warning I can think of is that the first part alludes to Bruce's canonical "death" that let to Dick taking up the cowl.
> 
> This is me self-indulgently exploring a very implausible (but happy!) alternate future for Dick and Damian. I might possibly be taking better risks than DC.

Dick falls asleep on the hard little pallet down in the Cave. 

He’s given Bruce so much shit for sleeping down here over the years. Every time Alfred removed the pallet, Bruce replaced it, rinse and repeat. But now it remains; Alfred must not have had the heart to touch it after they lost him.

When he buries his face in the pillow, it still smells like Batman’s leather and Bruce’s cologne. The scents reel him back into childhood and color his dreams. Vivid yellows and reds of the circus tent, Robin’s green, the blue-purple of midnight when he used to sit outside on the roof outside his bedroom in the manor and dream of flight.

And then he hears Bruce’s voice. Deep, reverberating through his ribcage. 

No--no, something was off, it wasn’t Bruce, couldn’t be Bruce, Bruce is--gone--yes, _say it_ \--Bruce is _dead._

 _“Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot…”_ Bruce’s voice intones.

Heart and head pounding, Dick pushes up on his elbows. 

In the center of the cave is a great mass of black cape. Cowl draped loosely over a head too small for it. Brown hands spread wide. 

Damian. 

Striding around the inside of the cave, he leaps forward and throws a punch. He’s nimble, but the cape weighs him down and turns the motion clumsy. Dick can sympathize. “I am vengeance! I am the night!”

Dick presses his fist to his mouth and bites down so he doesn’t laugh. Not that he’s in any position to make fun. Actually, it makes him feel better about his own childish make-believe. Makes him happy--shocked--to see Damian play. Of course, it isn’t as simple as that. He’s still grappling with a heavy legacy.

And Damian’s levity fades as he lowers his arms. Pushing up the cowl, he seems to be trying to reposition its white lenses so he can better stare down his reflection. “I..am Batman,” he says, but his heart’s not in it. His shoulders sag. 

When Damian pulls back the cowl, he looks shockingly young, baby fat and ruffled black hair. 

On the pallet, Dick tries to breathe without sound. He’d love to comfort him, but he was never meant to see this. By accident, he has intruded on a profoundly private moment. Now all he can do is watch, mute and aching. 

He mourns the father he lost and the father the boy never knew. The boy with a weight on his back and the boy longing for wings. The boy whose wound gapes too wide and the boy everyone treats like a weapon.

Shrugging off the cape, Damian hugs it to his chest and stands there in the faint pool of light. 

A little boy under a big shadow.

 

Okay, Dick is excited about this one. It’s not a surprise for Damian--he’s had plenty of input. But there’s a rush to it all the same. There is a beautiful symmetry to this, too. Dick designed his own Robin suit, then Damian’s. Dick modified his own Batman suit, and now...

“Well? Thoughts?” Damian spreads his hands wide and Dick is reminded with a jolt of a moment ten years ago. But this time he’s invited. Their moment to share.

Dark coat over dark suit, stylized Bat logo in acid green over his chest. The cowl’s ears come to sharp points. The shape of the boots and gloves, though black rather than green, call back to his Robin. He’d surpassed Bruce’s height, and although his shoulders had broadened, he’d never gained that bulk, retaining something of Talia’s litheness. 

It’s undeniably Damian under this suit.

“Ready for this?” Dick asks. He stands behind Damian and stares past his shoulder at his own reflection. This floor length mirror completes the old world glamor of Damian’s flat. He’s incredibly independent and private and few are invited as readily into this quiet space as Dick is, not that he has much time for visiting these days.

Smoothing his hands down his armored shoulders, he gives both biceps a squeeze.

The lenses of the cowl glow green. “I was born ready,” Damian says seriously, usual smooth tones roughened by the cowl’s voice modification. 

Dick maintains his own solemn facade. It’s what’s suitable for the chair of the Justice League, after all. Gravitas befitting his station and the magnitude of this moment. He keeps it up for all of ten seconds. Then he cracks up laughing. 

“Nightwing!” Damian barks at him. The line of his mouth is trembling, too. And then they’re both laughing, leaning against each other for support, foreheads bumping up against each other. 

“I can’t even believe it,” Dick says, slinging an arm around his shoulders. He rubs his knuckles across the top of his head, making sure to avoid the razor edges of the ears.

“Hmm.” Damian flips up his collar and surveys himself in the mirror again. Preens. His mouth’s still twitching, though. “I can.”

“You gonna go see your dad?” he asks as he adjusts the lay of Damian’s open coat.

“Tomorrow. It’s past time for me to start patrol tonight.” Damian looks back at him. His chest rises and falls.

“You okay?” Dick squeezes his elbow. “You always used to say it was your destiny,” he reminds him softly.

“You told me Batman can’t be a destiny,” Damian reminds him, meeting his eyes in their reflection. “Batman is a choice you make every day. No matter how hard it is. No matter how much it hurts.”

Dick breaks into a smile. “You remembered.”

“And I’m making that choice.” He looks back at him again and there’s that familiar hunger for approval. Robin looking to his Batman.

“You’ve earned it.”

Damian grins, sharp and white. 

 

Swinging a wide arc on his line, Dick lands on the roof and just stays up on his toes for a moment, feeling the wind ruffle his hair. There’s silver there now that he doesn’t like to think about.  
Up on the rooftops, it’s easy to forget.

There’s a quiet thump from behind him. A lightness of footfall Dick knows as well as the sound of his own heart.

“Batman.” Dick’s lips curl and he ducks his head.

“Nightwing,” Damian returns. “Have you already been to Gotham?”

“Came to you first.” Dick’s looking forward to that visit, too. 

The Batman of Gotham is a legend. The few existing videos might as well not have audio, Batman in action is so quiet. Criminals who haven’t set a foot in church for decades cross themselves at the sight of the Bat-signal. Under the bridge, kids have painted a mural of Batman, chest emblazoned in yellow, face shrouded in black. 

Batman is a piece of night flung to Earth, poetry in motion. 

Dick couldn’t be prouder of Cass.

But Damian, Damian is like no one else. 

He loves his team, loves working side-by-side with Clark and Diana, Zatanna and J’onn, but he misses his partner. 

Crouching on the roof’s very edge, Dick looks across the city, rebuilt bright and new and nothing like he knew. “How’s she treating you?” 

“Cruelly and unusually.” Damian joins him, toe of his boot jutting off the roof into crisp air. 

He shakes his head, starts to smile again. “Bludhaven will do that.”


	4. to live in this world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the Day 5 prompt, "native language."
> 
> Point-of-view switch from Dick to Damian halfway through, just as a heads-up.

Dick has to give Alfred credit. Crammed floor-to-ceiling with books, the shelves remain spotless, the room airy. 

There are so many stories in this room and not all of them are enclosed between the pages.

Thomas Wayne’s _Sherlock Holmes_ that he read to Bruce, that Bruce read to Dick in turn. He touches the tips of his fingers to the leather-bound spines, careful not to smudge them. Faded comic books from when Dick was a child and way too many crime novels for a preteen.

Jason’s Austen, Bronte, Woolf, slim volumes of poetry, raggedy old zines and manifestos. According to Alfred, he’s offered to box up Jason’s books for him, but Jason repeatedly refuses. Whether that’s because they are relics of another world to him or because he’s afraid for the books’ safety and integrity as he bounces from one dodgy, damp apartment to another, Dick can’t say.

Tim’s years as Robin. _Harry Potter, Hitchhiker’s, Discworld,_ and what appears to be Tolkien’s entire opus jockey for space with Orwell and Asimov and Le Guin. No doubt he has duplicate copies that are equally worn.

Bruce and Damian’s collections have begun to bleed together and mingle. Only every third title is English. Fat classics nudge up against odd apocrypha. There are even scrolls and tablets that Dick’s sure should be in a museum rather than stuffed in a musty manor’s library.

Frowning, Dick walks across his own shelves again, mouth pushing up in confusion. Everything in order and in place but for the one book he’s looking for. If Bruce were here, Dick would have known it was with him, but. Time to look elsewhere.

Nevertheless, his feet lead him up the stairs and into Bruce’s big bedroom. The drawn curtains turn midday to dusk and he moves forward almost dreamily. The air feels heavy and oddly unsettled. Reaching out, Dick runs his palm over the nightstand. Fingers come away without dust here, too. Oh, Alfred.

Dick wonders if he hasn’t misplaced it somewhere after all. That thought makes him want to be sick. Fist clenching against the door-frame, he breathes in and out. He’ll go combing for it again tomorrow. He’ll find it.

 

From the doorway, Damian watches Grayson with curiosity. He’s weaving back and forth, looking increasingly distraught. “Looking for something?”

“Yeah, just–-just this book,” he says, hesitating, then grimaces. “I probably just put it down somewhere upstairs and forgot about it. Don’t worry about it, Damian,” he says. The lightness of his tone tells Damian that he thinks it extremely unlikely that Damian would worry about it anyway. Which is–fair, he supposes, even though it’s not what he wants him to think.

Well. Nothing for it now. He hadn’t thought he would have noticed its absence so quickly and he was planning to slip it back onto the shelf without his noticing it had been gone at all.

Damian takes in a breath and carefully holds up what’s tucked under his arm. “This?” He’s gentle with it. Holds the aged book careful as a newborn animal. He recognizes though its monetary value may not be as great as that of some of the texts on the shelf, its true value is far greater. Sentimentality.

Grayson blinks. “Yeah. What–-?” Reaching out, he takes the book in his hands, gazing down at its cover. “What were you doing with it?”

“What does one do with books, Grayson?” Damian demands in exasperation. After observing the confusion on his face for a moment, he takes pity on him. He really can be pathetic, he thinks viciously before he realizes he doesn’t mean that at all. “Was reading it,” he mumbles at last. He’s the pathetic one.

“Reading it?” Grayson’s brow furrows and his lips curl, tentative. “You know Romani-–?” He thumbs open the worn green cover and touches soft fingertips to the note scrawled in a fond hand on a yellow page. A book of children’s fairytales. A frivolous thing. Slim book, heavy with memory.

It’s true that it wouldn’t make much sense for Damian to know Romani even with the scope of his knowledge of languages. “Attempting to read it.” He can feel his face flaming and his skin isn’t dark enough to hide it, he’s sure. He hates how his ears turn red.

Grayson gives him a little quizzical look, his eyes moving between Damian and the pages.

Although Grayson may be a moron, he’s not that stupid. He wants Damian to spell it out. He clamps his lips closed, resisting.

As always, Grayson relents first. He picks up his book and then slings his arm around his shoulders.

Damian resists initially, but he lets Grayson lead him over to the sofa. Even lets him tug him down so Damian’s cheek smushes into Grayson’s chest.

“My parents got this for me when I was young.” Grayson gazes down at the book, his eyes looking right through the pages.

Obviously, Damian wants to say. He holds his tongue, eyes flicking up to watch Grayson’s face at this odd angle.

“I don’t know where they actually bought it, but it came everywhere with us. We’ve had it since before I could read. They’d take turns reading it to me.” Grayson is smiling down at the book, that wistful smile that always makes Damian uncomfortable.

“I should not have taken a possession to which you have such great attachment without asking permission,” Damian says at a clip. It’s an apology or at least an approximation of one. Grayson should be pleased. 

He’s shaking his head, though, and squeezing Damian’s shoulders. Grayson is not as complicated as his grandfather, not as complicated as his mother or his father. Damian suspects he’ll never figure him out. “I’m, um–”

That’s not a sob he hears hiding in the back of his throat, is it? Damian, horrified, presses his hand to his chest as if to push it back inside him, squirming upright.

“I’m touched,” Grayson chokes out. Wrestling him down again, he crushes him to his chest and pushes his face into Damian’s hair.

“Grayson, release me!” Damian pounds his fist on his chest. He can easily escape. Doesn’t. His hair feels wet. He should have fled with the book and returned it once Grayson had finished his fruitless search. Perhaps he would have chalked it up to Pennyworth. Now his own chest feels tight and awful.

“You know, B-Bruce did this, too,” Grayson is telling him shakily. The mention of his father only makes the spiked ball in his chest blow up bigger. “He said he had some work to do in his office and I sneaked in to watch him and he had my book and a little dictionary. Don’t know where he got that or where he put it. I could try to find it for you.” He brushes aside Damian’s hair, lets out a little embarrassed laugh when he notices it’s damp. “You are trying to learn it, right?”

Painstakingly, Damian avoids looking at the tear tracks on Grayson’s face. “It is your mother tongue, as comfortable as you are with English.” He guesses he was raised bilingual, his parents flowing from one language to another, filling in gaps and bridging expressions. League Arabic is a composite creature, too, a mishmash of ancient and modern influences, a dialect onto itself. “One’s first language has connections to thought processes.” He’s glaring at his knee where it’s wedged against Grayson’s. “Emotions.”

Grayson lets out a laugh that sounds like he’s going to cry again. “You were trying to learn Romani to get to know me better?”

Damian’s ears are red again. “I will get up and leave this instant,” he gripes.

“No. Don’t.” Grayson reaches to open the book in Damian’s lap. “We could read together.”

“Tt. You mean you want to read to me.”

Grayson opens up the book, rifling through carefully. “Have you read this one yet?”

“I’m not a child,” Damian tells him. He lets the silence stretch out. “Only some of it,” he admits.

Settling back against the sofa, Grayson clears his throat. “This is my favorite.”

“What is the purpose of this exercise, Grayson?” Damian stares at the little illustration of a coiled serpent with small wings.

“Immersion?” Sentimentality.

“Hmm.” Damian only holds out for a moment longer. Finally, finally, he sinks down into his chest and nods in acquiescence.

“This one is called _O savo kai sas les mila,”_ Grayson says, voice like a river running over the words. “Um. ‘The Merciful Boy.’” He pauses, as if waiting.

“Don’t keep stopping.” His fingers curl into his soft shirt. He smells faintly like popcorn. Mostly like laundry.

Grayson runs his finger over the words without touching them and opens his mouth.

 _“Tut sas–-“_ Damian frowns, trying to shape his mouth like Grayson did. _“Tut sas…tut mila…”_

 _“Tut sas tut mila mandar,”_ Grayson says, slow and sing-song, no impatience or frustration in it, _“thai hastridian man thai dinian man te hau.”_

“Thai hastridian man thai dinian man te hau,” he repeats at snail’s pace. Says it again, says the whole thing over. He’s still not satisfied.

Grayson presses his mouth to the top of his head. Damian doesn’t pull away. “It means–-”

“I know what it means,” he interrupts again. He pored over translations of this, the story of the merciful boy and the deadly snake who he helped despite all danger to himself. Wonders now if his father did the same. Felt the same. Lifting his head from his chest, Damian surveys his puffy eyes, the tender line of his lips. “‘You took mercy on me.’“ Damian swallows. “‘And you saved me, and you fed me.’”

Damian doesn’t think he imagines the way Grayson’s arm tightens around his chest. Grayson takes a deep breath and Damian drops his head back on his chest, feeling his chest fill and then empty again. _“Sasas jekhvar jekh savo…”_

Damian can hear his heart thump under his ear. He closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dick's book of Romani stories in this fic is based on [this book,](https://issuu.com/silviuiacob/docs/romane_paramicia_phende_katar_i_bib) which does not actually exist in print, as far as I know. The English translation came from the English version. I don't know the language, so forgive me any mistakes!


	5. the road will only be wide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the Day 7 prompt "I'm trying really hard to pretend I don't like this."
> 
> No warnings, all silliness. Set early in Dick!Bats era, exploring the psychology of Dick taking on the cowl a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting out of order of the actual days, yes. I prefer how it reads this way.

“Whatcha doing, grease-monkey?” Dick leans down over the Batmobile. All he can see are Damian’s Chucks.

Damian pops out from under the car, looking like a little thundercloud. Okay. Nicknames are off the table, then. No fun allowed. “Making some modifications.”

“Modifications?” Dick repeats, not really thinking too much of it. He pats the Batmobile’s shining side. It’s definitely not the car he rode shotgun in as a kid, but he’s fond of this dozenth iteration of the old girl anyway.

“You’ll see.” Humming, Damian disappears again.

 

“Thanks, Oracle.” He clicks off the comm with Babs and sets his hands on the wheels. “Ready, Robin?”

“Almost.” Suddenly, this crazy kid is horizontal across his lap and fiddling with some switches he hadn’t noticed before.

“What–-?” Dick’s gauntleted hands grip the wheel for dear life as the Batmobile lurches once, twice. And lifts off the ground. 

Fucking flies. 

“Robin!” he roars. Okay, he’s been honing his Bruce impression and that’s not a bad one.

Moving with the teetering of the car, Damian mutters to himself and flicks a few switches. Dick was never this much of a brat, was he? They manage some kind of working together to steady the thing. Finally, it hovers awkwardly but steadily in midair.

In the low light of the interior, behind cowl and mask, they stare at each other. “Now what?” Dick says, exasperated.

“Now, circus monkey, we fly.” Damian jerks his chin at the apparatus.

Dick lets out a heavy, heavy sigh. Is this how Bruce felt? He doesn’t know how he wasn’t fired sooner. “This can’t be safe,” he says as he grabs onto all his piloting and driving instincts and lifts them up a little farther.

“Oh, you’re worrying about safety now?” Cocky, cocky Damian, he’s got a boot on the dash and–he’s got a point.

“You’re fixing this when we get home,” Dick growls. Oh yeah. There’s some Bruce in there. 

They clear the tops of the trees and they’re flying. The Batmobile is flying. That little bit of Bruce, that ghost under the cowl vanishes into the night the higher they climb.

“Come on. Tell me this isn’t awesome.” Kind of clunky in his mouth, still the most age-appropriate thing Dick’s ever heard out of Damian.

His mouth twitches under the dark shadow of the cowl despite himself. “This isn’t awesome,” he says for formality’s sake. Accelerating, he loops the car in midair.

He and Damian yell all the way down and out. 

Weightless.

He’s in the driver’s seat of the Batmobile, but he’s all flying Grayson.


	6. the rain will never stop falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the Day 6 prompt, "Leave me alone."
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: mention of non-graphic injury, discussion of past canonical character deaths. Check out notes at the end for whose deaths if you need to know before you read!

Nightwing lands on his feet hard but recovers admirably, hunching next to Robin. He’s breathing hard.

“If you had listened to me, this wouldn’t have happened,” Damian snaps, voice lowered. He can hear the police speaking from behind the flipped car where they crouch. 

Grayson grips his side and lets his head loll to the side. “It’s over now, anyway.”

“But I told you,” Damian persists, belligerent, “your strategy was never going to work. We should have approached from the side.”

Looking listless, Grayson only shrugs. “Yeah, maybe that would have worked better.”

“I am much more equipped to craft plans of actions than you. I am extensively trained in these matters.”

“Right. Yeah.” He struggles upright, making sure to stay in the shadows, and clutches at the gash at his side.

“That injury is your fault entirely,” Damian continues as he eyes the wound. “It never would have happened had you listened to me–”

Grayson rounds on him with that rare flint-strike temper. “No, you listen to me! We work as a team. You agreed to my decision. It’s done, Robin, would you just-–”

“No!” Damian’s lip curls and it’s not disdain, it’s worry, but he doesn’t know how to make the words come out right and the red red blood against olive skin makes him dizzy with fear. “You are irrational and impulsive and almost every move you made tonight was a mistake.”

Grayson jerks back and for a second Damian thinks he might hit him. He almost wants him to hit him. But instead he turns on his heel and walks away, fingers pinching together the ragged edges of his suit.

“Nightwing.” Damian scrambles upright and makes to follow him.

Grayson holds a hand up and shakes his head. “No, Robin.”

“You’re being a-–”

“Leave me alone!” he shouts, and it’s loud, too loud. It shocks them both equally and they’re frozen in place for a moment before Nightwing stomps off to his bike with none of his usual lightness of step.

Dumbstruck, Damian just lets him roar off in the other direction.

 

That’s the end of it, he thinks in the morning. Grayson will go off to brood for a while in his apartment and won’t ask Damian to visit for the rest of the week. Damian will be stuck on patrol with his father and will only hear Nightwing’s excuse for banter through his comm. Which is fine. Everything’s fine.

Everything is so fine that Damian holes himself up in his room the whole next day and only hates himself a little. Foot stuck under Titus’s warm stomach, he sketches away furiously. His earphones blast El Général so loudly that he almost misses the knock on the door. He glances at the time. Perhaps it’s Alfred with dinner, which Damian will refuse.

“Damian?” The voice is soft and cracked down the middle with exhaustion.

Grayson. Damian’s shoulders draw inward. After a brief internal argument about whether he wants to drown in a tsunami of guilt, he walks over and wrenches open the door.

Grayson has rings under his eyes and the black sweater he wears looks lumpy over his bandaged side. “Are you free?”

Damian looks back at his unfinished drawing. Not an adequate excuse. “I suppose,” he says with caution.

“Cool. You wanna come out with me, then?” Grayson looks hopeful, though not really excited.

“Do I have a choice?” Damian’s already grabbing his jacket.

“You do.” Grayson’s frowning. “You don’t have to come unless you want. I mean, last night you said–”

“Forget what I said last night.” Sticking his hands in his pockets, Damian shoulders past him. “Let’s go.”

It only occurs to him when they’re driving down darkened back roads that he never asked where they were going. Grayson’s also reticent today, drawn and wan in the moonlight flickering through the car window.

“How’s your side?” Damian asks roughly, looking down at his hands in his lap.

“It’ll heal up okay.” Grayson’s thumb taps on the wheel. “About yesterday-–you were right.”

Before Grayson can continue, Damian sits up and blurts, “No.”

He has Grayson’s full attention now, his eyes flicking to him.

It feels like he has to force every word up his throat, but Damian admits, “I was wrong.”

Grayson smiles for the first time since the beginning of last night before it all went south. Mercifully, though, he says nothing more on the topic. “I’m sorry to spring this on you.” He gestures ahead as they pull into a tiny parking lot. “It’s the anniversary.”

“Anniversary?” Damian echoes stupidly as he steps out of the car and looks ahead. Oh. There are pale gravestones visible under the early night sky. The grass looks well-maintained and many graves are covered in flowers and notes.

Bending down into the back, Dick picks up a big bouquet of sunflowers. Some kind of detective Damian is. “Come on, Damian.” He holds out his hand to Damian and Damian might be a useless detective and a no-good team player, but this time, he slips his hand into Grayson’s without complaint.

Grayson leads them down to a pair of simple stones open to the sky but stops a good few meters back. “Pop Haley took some of their ashes to scatter on the circus’s route out of Gotham. It’s what they would have wanted. They never stayed in one place all their lives.”

Damian’s heard plenty about Grayson’s childhood with his parents by now, but he doesn’t speak much about the end of it. He remains quiet and squeezes Grayson’s hand tight.

“Maybe it’s what I would want, too. But I guess I’m not a circus boy anymore, huh.”

“What happened to ‘you can’t take the circus out of the boy?’” Damian points out. And let that be the last time he ever encourages him to repeat his favorite slogan. “If that is what you want, that is what should be done. Although not for decades yet.”

“You were worried last night, huh.” Ah. So Damian won’t be so lucky as to escape talking about that after all.

With a moue, Damian doesn’t respond. “I will wait in the car while you…take a moment with them.” He doesn’t understand his father and Grayson’s grief, but he can try.

“Nah. Just hang on a sec.” Leaving his side, Grayson crosses to his parents’ grave. He lays the bouquet down and places his fingertips over his mother’s name. His voice drops so quiet that Damian would have to strain to hear him as he whispers to the unfeeling, unseeing stone. Out of a respect for his privacy, Damian politely tunes out the susurrus.

“Mom? Dad?” There’s a smile in Grayson’s voice and he’s straightening. “I want you to meet someone.”

Damian’s head snaps up.

Grayson takes his hand again and pulls him forward and into his side. “Mom, Dad, this is Damian. You know, when we first met, I didn’t think I’d ever bring him out here. He’d find a new way to make me angry every day. Did it yesterday for old time’s sake, I guess.” Grayson’s smiling again, smiling even now. Boy Wonder. “You should see him. He’s amazing. He’d bring down the roof whatever he was doing. Could’ve had him as a knife-thrower, maybe. Or-–he loves animals. He’s got a cow and a dog and a–-a dragon bat. Yeah. I know.” He huffs a laugh. “Zitka would be easy after that.”

His mouth flattens out and the hand not in Damian’s goes to slide down the curve of his father’s stone. “I was just thinking and–and I know I told you that I’d lost him…but I realized I’d never introduced you guys before and I thought…” 

Grayson’s wavering voice trembles and breaks. “You might have seen him up there and never known that he was somebody I loved.”

Damian is out of his element here. His ribs feel too small for everything in his heart and he can only swallow repeatedly, brow knitted. His fingers curl tight into Grayson’s palm.

And then he does it, he forces up the words again. Forces them up clumsy and inadequate because one day, he’d like to be the person Grayson thinks he is.

“Your son is brave to the point of stupidity,” he starts, staring down at the sunflowers. “Gives second chances second chances. Hopeless in more ways than one,” Damian tells Mary Grayson. 

His eyes shift to John Grayson. He cannot look at the man beside him. “Your son still flies without a net. But I want you to know that even though you are not there to pull him to safety anymore, there are still people who will catch him.”

Grayson’s hand lies warm on his nape. He can feel the texture of his bandages under his thin sweater.

His throat closes up on itself. But he will say it now even if he never can again. “I know Dick Grayson will always be your son, but–-thank you for my brother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Discussion of Damian's death and of Dick's parents' death.


End file.
